Qoute from the NYTimes investigation into the story concerning military TV analysts being less than independent:

"Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”"

Another quote:

"[...] when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: “I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena.”"

- What are your thoughts on this story? Is it being told where you are? In Europe it is getting quite a bit of traction.

Is it just the name of the game that such military analysts are less than independent, something that the informed public should expect from any talking head on TV? - Or is it dishonest manipulation of the public, because they have not disclosed their affiliation, but pretend to be neutral? I must say that personally I see some sense in both sides of the argument.

Interesting reading in any case, and a story that can certainly sharpen the healthy scepticism we all should have of what we read and see in the media. Sceptiscism that is healthy to have for both right- and left-wingers towards both the right-leaning and left-leaning parts of the press

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

A quote from the beginning of the article:

"To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found."

A final quote:

"The group was heavily represented by men involved in the business of helping companies win military contracts. Several held senior positions with contractors that gave them direct responsibility for winning new Pentagon business. James Marks, a retired Army general and analyst for CNN from 2004 to 2007, pursued military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive with McNeil Technologies. Still others held board positions with military firms that gave them responsibility for government business. General McInerney, the Fox analyst, for example, sits on the boards of several military contractors, including Nortel Government Solutions, a supplier of communication networks."

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I hope we can all avoid knee-jerk reactions based on other issues than the actual content of the story...

Here in Austria, we only have a handfull of those (mostly Defence Journalists) and they aren't bought or steered. Obviously our sympathy lies with the Armed Forces, and we get a lot of information out of them, but we'd never purposely sing their song.

What is your job RS? Are you a journalist?

BTW, the NYTimes article is eleven rather short pages, so not too long a read...

Jep, next to my day job, I'm a spare-time journalist for aviation mags. Reading the Article now...

I think you'll find that most recently retired service members are biased towards the military. After all, they just spent twenty plus years of their life there.

Couple that with the fact that most of these talking heads remain affiliated via associations, jobs with big defense contractors and/or Beltway Bandits and you have one big happy family....that can't build anything for less than $50 million.

I can certainly understand that, and most people would also expect that from any analyst with a "ret." after his military title. The article here talks more of a bias towards a certain political leadership and their strategy (keeping troop-levels low acc. to the Rumsfeld strategy), though. That affiliation wouldn't be so clear-cut and obvious to most viewers I guess.

As Jon Stewart put it, it was merely an exchange program: Journalists were embedded with the troops, and so troops were embedded with the journalists in return.

I think we Americans would be appalled to discover the "real story" behind military operations in WW2. But the end result is that we did the right thing, even though many military blunders were never revealed, or even more, they were reported by a pro-American gung-ho news media.

But is it wrong? Nah.

If you're looking for good independent war reporting, there's none better than Michael Yon.

There are some members who retire and don't sing the administration tune. Wes Clark ran for president as a Democrat in the 04 election. I got to see him speak at a campaign stop here, and he was pretty cool. Told about getting shot 3 times while on patrol in Vietnam (can't remember what it had to do with his campaign but it was a cool story). IIRC Anthony Zinni has been speaking out against the war in Iraq and he is a retired Marine general. I am sure there are plenty of examples to show both sides of this argument though.